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Richard Gesteland Wiki
'Richard R. Gesteland' Richard R. Gesteland 'is a respectful author, globalisation consultant and leading speaker providing corporations and associations with experience-based training in negotiating and managing across cultures. His expertise lies in negotiation, trading, marketing and intercultural management. Mr. Gesteland wrote several books covering the topic ‘Cross-cultural Business Behavior’ for 30 years in Europe, Asia and Latin America. In this book, his experiences in international management will be described accurately and practical. Besides writing books, Gesteland is also the founder of the concept ‘Patterns of Cross-Cultural Business Behaviour’. '''When did Richard R. Gesteland develop the theory of "Patterns of Cross-Cultural Business Behaviour"? ' In 1999, Richard R.Gesteland published the first edition of his book named "Cross-Cultural Husiness Behavior". The identical named theoretical framework was developed, because he wanted to diminish the frustrating differences in global business undertakings. '''What is main purpose of this concept? The book's purpose is to decrease confusion and provide some predictability by clustering global business practices into logical patterns. The purpose of clustering the information into patterns is that, as researched found out, the human brain works better when thinking in patterns. Richard R. Gesteland states from personal experience, that recalling information from a pattern is much easier, than unstructured thinking. He also received consesus feedback about this system from numerous students and managers from his seminars. The book is seperated into theoretical frameworks and case examples and therefore gives insight into real-life business examples. How did he gather the data? Over three decades of self-observation about international promising deals going bad, due to the fact that the common business practices in that respective culture were misunderstood or simply ignored. The cases in the book are developed from Richard R. Gestelands 35 years of experience in marketing, managing, leading and sourcing. As an international executive in 1963 to 1993, he experienced business behaviors in Frankfurt (twice), Vienna, Florence, Sao Paolo, New Delhi (twice), and Singapore. Since 1993, he worked as a speaker and workshop leader at many companies and schools in Australia, Belgium, Britain, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, the USA and Venezuela. In addition to Mr. Gesteland's personal experiences, another chapter is dedicated to examples from conversation with fellow business experts. The theoretical concepts were developed by Richard R. Gesteland being inspired by other reputable authors such as: Edward T. and Mildred Reed Hall, Geert Hofstede, and William Gudykunst and Robert Moran. Additionally, three educational institutions have influenced Mr. Gesteland's work. These are the following, "The Export Institute of Singapore", "The Niels Brock Copenhagen Business College" ''and ''"The Management Institute of the University of Wisconsin". The main idea of the theory / model What are the main concepts of the theory? Patterns of Cross Cultural Business Behavior are about interpreting human behavior, that varies from culture to culture. Patterns of Cross Cultural Business Behavior contribute to bridging the cultural gap between countries, taking each other’s preferences into account and understanding where differences come from. Four dimensions Richard Gesteland has created a manual about how best to approach different cultures and how one can best understand other cultures. He developed four dimensions that characterise the culture of a country as part of his research. These four dimensions can be distinguished in relation to different cultures: 1. Business, deal-focused cultures versus relationship-focused cultures The business, deal-focused are very task-oriented. They have no difficulty communicating with foreign cultures. To them it’s about the negotiations and the eventual transaction. This group consists mainly of Scandinavian and Germanic countries, North-America, Australia and New Zealand. In the case of relationship-focused cultures, the negotiators find interaction more important than closing the deal. The interaction with the business partner needs to be right first, and there should be a foundation of trust. Examples of this group are the Arab world, most of Africa, Latin America and Asia. 2. Formal cultures versus informal cultures In formal cultures, people prefer a respectful and honourable communication style. Differences in hierarchical position and status are considered very important and people are valued accordingly. Academic titles and royal ranks command respect. This applies in much of Europe, Asia, Mediterranean countries, the Arab world and Latin American countries. Informal cultures are not being disrespectful, but do not put as much stock in difference in status and position. Everybody is equal and everyone has the chance or opportunity to advance. The United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway and Iceland are informal cultures. 3. Rigid (monochrome) cultures versus fluid / accommodating cultures Rigid cultures need everything to go exactly according to schedule with great precision. Arriving late is not the done thing and missing deadlines or meetings running late is unthinkable. Clear examples of this are Scandinavian and Germanic countries, North America and Japan. Very different are the countries with a fluid attitude to time. People and interpersonal relations are considered more important than time, making deadlines or sticking to schedules. These polychrome cultures can be found in the Arab world, much of Africa, Latin American and South-east Asia. 4. Expressive cultures versus conservative / reserved cultures Expressive cultures are characterised by communicating loudly and with a lot of gestures. They do their best to avoid awkward silences and there is little consideration for personal space during conversations; people stand close together, often touch each other and look each other in the eyes. This is characteristic of Mediterranean countries, Southern Europe and Latin America. People in reserved cultures tend to speak more calmly. General and continuous eye contact is avoided and they use little if any hand and arm gestures. This is characteristic of Southeast Asia and Northern Europe. How are nations or societal cultures classified / characterized? Cultural groups To distinguish between cultures, Gesteland has divided the most important countries in eight groups that have the characteristics of the dimensions mentioned earlier: Group 1 – India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, The Philippines These countries are relationship-focused, formal in the way they interact, fluid when it comes to time and reserved. Group 2 – Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore These countries are relationship-focused, formal in the way they interact, rigid when it comes to time and reserved. Group 3 – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Greece, Brazil, Mexico These countries are relationship-focused, formal in the way they interact, fluid when it comes to time and expressive. Group 4 – Russia, Poland, Romania These countries are relationship-focused, formal in the way they interact, fluid when it comes to time and expressive. Group 5 – France, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Hungary These countries are deal-focused, formal in the way they interact, rigid when it comes to time and expressive. Group 6 – Baltic states These countries are deal-focused, formal in the way they interact, rigid when it comes to time and reserved. Group 7 – Great Britain, Denmark, Finland, Russia, The Netherlands, Czech Republic These countries are deal-focused, formal in the way they interact, rigid when it comes to time and reserved. Group 8 – Australia, Canada, United States These countries are deal-focused, informal in the way they interact, rigid when it comes to time and expressive. = Our opinion and the model's applicability in today's world Theory shows cultural differences in pattern well (for example, it is correct about Korean and Finnish culture), but it has some risk that we can have stereotype and prejudice to other cultures also. Theory should be updated now and then, because every culture is chancing very quickly these days. As an example, in Korea many venture businesses are coming up and they are focusing more to deal instead of relationship. The older generation may still keep these cultural prejudices alive, but younger generation is more open to new things and thanks to social media, internet and travelling the cultural borders are slowly melting away, since everybody has access to the whole world. Also people are working more and more in multicultural businesses, so also that teaches people to be more like "that other guy in the office", in terms that work needs to be done and there is work culture to be followed instead of national culture. < Category:Browse